The TITANIC, the Administration, and Other Things That Leak

Darth Swank reports on a Defense Department memo, reported in the USA Today, which doesn't quite back up the "Everything's comin' up roses!" view of the War on Terror. Glenn Reynolds, of course, is incensed at the leak (this from the guy who kept maintaining that the Valerie Plame affair was "too confusing"), which is unfortunate because it's not clear that this is a leak at all, and anyway, the Department of Defense has put the memo up on their website. Now, I'm far from an expert here, so let me know if I'm wrong. But it doesn't seem to me that memos intended to be confidential get posted to the Web, even if they get leaked.

I sometimes get the feeling that if Reynolds were the Captain of an English ocean liner on its maiden voyage, his reaction to being handed a note informing him that a very large icefield lies ahead would be to light all the boilers and go full steam ahead.